Cuba Part 2

                                                         More views of the grounds

    Now this was the day that things got really exciting as far as I was concerned!!! No Seriously we had been having the time of our lives, but we happened to be walking by the bigger of the 2 pools and saw a man holding a baby crocodile and instantly I was reeled in!! I got to hold the adorable thing...it was so quiet and cute. The man said it would grow to 4 meters long,but for now it was soft and almost cuddly !! We found out that the man and his brother have a bunch of animals that they do a show with.So guess where we were at 3:00 that afternoon? .....

                                                     4 cute little dogs doing tricks and dancing. I got the tricks on video to show the girls when we got home!

                                                   More dancing dogs

                                                      A goat with a saddle and a monkey on his back

                                                            after the show was over,naturally I wandered over to where the goat was tied , and we had a friendly little chat. I also had a monkey jump on my back..much to my surprise  when I was patting the goat, but it jumped back to its owner's shoulder so quick, Ryan didn't have time to get a picture.

                                             Dinner out at the a la carte Italian restaurant

                                                           It was very good..I stayed safe and went with lasagne though!!!

                                                                    After we had a rousing game of Dutch blitz!

                                             I trounced Ryan soundly in that game..I'm afraid we weren't exactly the most exciting vacationers! We had wanted to see at least one of the evening shows which started at 9 every evening...by 7:30 I was yawning so bad, that we actually never made it to any of them all week!! Now we probably didn't miss much as far as wholesome entertainment went...but we will never know I guess!! Really to my credit,you know how tired you get after a day at the beach..all the sun and activity leaches your energy..I think that is all I can chalk it up to!!

                                                 

                                                        The next day on our beach walk we saw lots of pelicans all on the beach surrounding a man with a white bucket....well he had figured out a great way of making money off the tourists. If you paid him 1 peso, he would let you feed the pelicans...now I didn't feed them but I took advantage of their close proximity and got lots of adorable pictures! They are the size of geese, and I think they are so cute!! In Cuba, and I suppose all over the world in tourist spots along the coast, there is one resort after the next for miles and miles along the coast. So the people who do their selling, just walk everyday from one resort to the next all day long. The pelican man did the same and was it ever cute to see these wild birds keep one eye on him as they followed him flying close , all the way up the beach to the next place he would stop and get a crowd!!

                                                              We wrote a sand message to the girls one morning on our walk..we missed them so much!

                                                        But we were having such a fun time on our own!! It was very odd not to have 1 moment of stress..(.well there was the time when Ryan realized he had locked our key card in our room..!!)., or frustration. Not to have to do a lick of work or even think of it for 7 whole days.. At one point I said something to Ryan about how glad I was to be his wife , and he looked funny at me and said it sounded strange to think of me as his wife in Cuba...what he meant was the term wife he had come to think of as house wife...and mother .All my roles melded  onto one word ,and on our own just the 2 of us it seemed so different than at home.

                                              We were serenaded twice while we were there. Once it was by a trio of Spanish musicians during our supper...they just came to our table and started singing something  romantic sounding...we did catch the words  el amor so we had an idea of what he was singing!! The second time this gentleman came by the restaurant we were eating in and he played beautifully.

                                                       

                                               The view from our balcony  Behind the trees was one of the 2  multi level,intricate pools on the property.

                                                  Another view

                                                        Here is the birthday boy ! We both woke up that day with going home that evening to see our girls on our minds...so the very sad fact is that I didn't even remember it was his birthday, so consumed was I with seeing my babies again, until we were eating lunch!!! What a bad wife I am!! He took it in stride..if you know Ryan, you know it didn't ruffle his feathers a single bit. He simply said he was( amusedly) wondering when I would remember...I said he could have reminded me, but he thought it would be more fun to  wait and see how long it took me on my own...

                                             Needless to say this day was the longest and most dragged on day of the entire vacation...I also took the most pictures of our trip on this last day!! We had to check out of our room at noon, and then just had to try to enjoy the rest of the day until 5:30 when our shuttle would pick us up to take us to the airport...So lots of sitting around..grinning with excitement!

                                             Taking pictures......

                                                    Here is one of the buffet restaurants that we ate at the most.

                                                  The effort that was put into the food presentation was incredible. I can't imagine the time it must take the chefs.

                                                            Every dish had some edible flourish

                                                           watermelon roses..

                                           these chocolate filigrees were intricate and beautiful..and stuck into every dessert on the buffet line!!

                                                             Needless to say we both did not return home at the weight in which we left....even with all those beach walks and swimming!!!

                                                More killing time!!

                                                I could not get into the swimming end of things knowing I was going home, so I opted to stay dry for the day..."Martha" (Stewart) and I had lots of fun!! I had saved my magazine for such a time as this.

                                                Ryan meanwhile had no such hesitations , he swam his heart out in the pool, while I watched...and read...

                                                     One last picture before we headed out!!

 Well, round about 4:30 we moseyed into the lobby to get ready to leave, and noticed a commotion over  a piece of paper lying on the counter ...which calmly stated that our flight had been delayed 3 whole hours.....well when  we heard that that last day seemed to get much longer!!  Here is Ryan looking over our travel documents making sure everything is in place.....again!!

                                                 More Dutch Blitz!!

                        Then we went to the beach for one last sunset in Veradero Cuba !! We had had a fabulous week together , one that we will remember forever...

                                         now we were ready to get home to our girls!!!

Cuba!!! Part 1

 10 years ago last September the love of my life and I said "I Do" and embarked on an amazing journey together. There have been many mountains and some valleys, but God has blessed us with so much through it all and we, looking back and forward have so much to be thankful for. Well in honor of our big 10 year anniversary, we planned a week long second honeymoon of sorts, and as I am ever the heat loving, cold most of the time "I don't enjoy winter" type of person, Ryan promised me it could be somewhere warm!!  We have been saving for some time,and last fall, we made the arrangements to go to Cuba for a week long vacation this March. We have been counting down the days since January, and we got all ready to go this past week. My Mom and Dad said that they would take all of our girls for the time , and everything was set. The only hitch was that Ryan's birthday fell on our last day in Cuba and we wouldn't  get to be with the girls on his special day..well that had our 2 oldest in tears when they thought about it too hard....I think they flipped the circumstances around in their minds and decided it would be the end of the world if Daddy wasn't there on their birthday...whatever the problem, we planned to spend the last day of all of our family's being together celebrating Ryan's upcoming birthday...

                                          Here we are.."birthday breakfasts"!!

                                                ...and presents!!

                              Yay for new Coffee mugs!

                                                      New Pants!

                                               And for lunch dessert....His absolute fave...strawberry rhubarb pie!!
                                       After we finished up the celebrations..we got the van all packed up and hit the road to Grammie and Grampie's house!  We stayed the night there, got the girls settled ,and the next day  Ryan and I headed back home, where we got ourselves all packed up . We woke up the next morning,went to church, and right after church, got in Dad's truck.(we'd traded our van for his truck),and headed to Halifax....the airport..and Cuba!!

                                          Waiting for our plane  at the airport...sooo excited!!

                                                      We arrived late that night, so we didn't get to see much of our surroundings. But when we woke up the next day...we just kept pinching ourselves to see if it was real!!  We ate breakfast at one of 2 huge buffet restaurants . The selection was crazy. Some of the food was downright strange looking, but there was lots of yummy things too! Our favourite of the week was the custom made omelets. The chef stood behind his grill ,you chose the add ins and he cooked it for you right on the spot!! So good!!

                                                   Our first morning breakfast  still a little sleepy looking!

                                          Then we got down to the business of exploring! These were 2 of the many hotel units.

                                                I fell instantly in love with all the trees..some of them had little coconuts in them! I was hoping for big coconuts...and tried to devise a plan of how I could possibly get one and eat it...but no real great thoughts came to mind..so  that didn't happen much to my sadness while we were in Cuba..

                                                          This is inside our hotel building..It had a courtyard of sorts in the middle of it. They were all 3 stories high, and had the open courtyard in the middle with a balcony running all around.

                                              This is the inside of ours.

                                  Ryan hates this picture of him appreciating the view..so I thought I'd include it in our blog!! Hee hee hee..to his credit..he wasn't posing, and didn't know I was taking the picture!...

                                                  Lots of feral cats around.Very friendly and they made us miss Emmy as she adores cats

                                This is Ryan's favourite picture of me from our vacation...me scouting around in the woods trying to find lizards,and baby cactuses ...or anything else interesting!! " Scrounging" as my Dad calls it!!

                                                I loved this huge cactus tree! I couldn't believe how big these tiny baby ones grow that they sell in the stores around here in Canada.

                                                     Here is the size I'm used to seeing around here!!

                                       Another thing I thought was funny was seeing all my house plants as outdoor trees! We have this one in our church by the piano!

                                       One thing really neat in Cuba is all the old cars everywhere. I guess they take amazing care of them, and without the snow and salt, the cars last and last...They use them as  taxis, and we saw hundreds of them lining the streets.

                                                 Again, me and the trees!!

                                              Here is my favourite beach comber!! They had these shelters all over the beach     as shade for everyone.        

                                       These guys were definitely a favourite of mine! Pelicans...all over the place at the beach.They were so cute!

                                            They would fly over all of us,hover, then dive head first into the water after fish, resurface, and gulp their fish down their gullet.

                                                      That little splash is where one just disappeared after his prey

                                                       Here is one mid dive.

                                             Here was another find of mine coming from the beach. He didn't want me getting too close. but I got a good picture before he hid under the boardwalk.

                                                   These little guys were everywhere. I wished the girlsies were with us because I wanted to show all these new creatures to them! So I took lots of pictures to show them.

                                                                Loving the water!

                                                               We had so much fun getting dressed up every evening for Dinner. It was a week,of feeling spoiled and pampered.The gardeners upon seeing us ladies would often pick a flower from the bushes and hand them to us, so everywhere  you looked ladies of all ages were wearing flowers in their hair.

                                                 We had a favourite settee in the great room lounge area,that we would go every evening after supper to chat and enjoy the evening. There were no windows or doors in the main building so the breezes blew in and it was lovely!

                                      I had to take a picture of this to show Ryan..It was in the ladies bathroom in the Main Building. From the floor to the ceiling and it was like a sculpture,as part of it stuck out of the wall..I loved it!

                                       More pictures of the same bathroom, there were always fresh flowers everywhere..so beautiful!

                                                   Another picture of my beachcomber! Every morning after breakfast we would walk the beach for miles and find shells...lots of beautiful shells! Now this picture has a great story..Emily bought Ryan a little coffee travel mug for his birthday for 1$ from a fundraiser "Send a kid to Bible camp" bring and buy sale we were a part of. She was so excited for him to take to Cuba and he would fill  it every morning with hot chocolate and drink it on our beach walk. The locals flock to the beaches and try to sell their shells, starfish.. jewellery...hats,crocheted beach cover-ups whatever they have to the tourists. Well we were walking one morning, and a young guy selling giant starfish asked Ryan to trade his mug for a starfish, Poor Ryan, he loved his mug , but it meant the world to the guy to have this plastic travel mug, and so he traded..knowing Em would love the starfish and understand being able to help out a destitute  person who might not ever have the chance to have a coffee mug of their own. So This is the picture I took right after his big trade!

                                            Me with my cup filled with shells that we had found.

                                                  This was me every night while we were in Cuba....with a sweatshirt on! I, as silly as this seems ..froze in the evenings! I had asked several people who had been, if I should bring warm clothes and they said  "no"..and laughed at the thought ..well once that sun went down.and that breeze came up..my goose bumps came out and over my pretty sun dresses and jewellery I threw on the only thing warm I had..the old hoodie I'd worn to the airport! Poor Ryan just laughed at me...So...if you ever go...and are of the cold nature...bring a nice cardigan to complement your pretty dresses and nice jewellery!!

                                   He still loved me hoodie and all!

                                                       Inside the main building .

Ryan on "our settee"